"...Gray chairman of the board of R J Reynolds Tobacco company will be buried at sea from the steamship today at m EST Gray died aboard ship last night after suffering an heart attack His brother James ... No County Yet Has Voted Dry R J REYNOLDS HEAD STRICKEN BowmanGray Dies en route to North Capes en Cruise With ily Was Chairman of Board Raleigh July will be held in two North Carolina counties tomorrow ... might have squeezed the death sentence through the house Now the nolent White House fixers have been put on the spot by angry house inquisitors Four months too late the senate starts a face-saving inquiry ... and down the state against the dominant Insull inter- ests He attended owl sessions of congressmen scheming to put through the death He was..."

"...Carolinians now on will be on the payrolls of Progress projects by that S Clay formerly president has rs of the R J Reynolds company BowmanGray who died n week ago aboard a cruise ship abroad P A ROBERTS ... and little daughter Ada Virginia went Saturday night to Raleigh on ac count of the sudden death of Mr J H Finlator of Mr Best Funeral and burial will be held today in Raleigh In the immediate family Mr ... and beating of a number of negroes in the section of the county known as the dead death She was a devoted taking along a basket of a true neighbor and friend and Included among those present children and r ... of the Presbyterian choir sang and Rev J M Appleby friends that it was a conducted home at II the ..."

"...of North Carolina has gone for the amelioration of the sick and suffering BOWMANGRAYBowmanGray is dead and buried at sea victim of an acute heart attack 01 tne SICK ami Mr Gray probably was the least ... it meant death For the pleasant young strangers were a fine assortment indeed and the New York lawyer paid for his evening's re- laxation with his life The pleasant world of any great city has some queer
..."

About Bowman Gray, Sr.

Bowman Gray, Sr. (May 1, 1874 – July 7, 1935) was a former president and chairman of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and a major benefactor of Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Bowman Gray was born in what was then Winston, NC to Wachovia co-founder James Alexander Gray and the former Aurelia Bowman. After receiving his primary and secondary education in his hometown, Gray matriculated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the 1890-91 academic year. He left school the following year to become a clerk at Wachovia. In 1895, he began working at R. J. Reynolds as a salesman. His sales success propelled him into management after two years, at which point he moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he married the former Nathalie Fontaine Lyons on October 1, 1902. There she gave birth to their two sons, Bowman Gray, Jr. in 1907 and Gordon Gray in 1909.

In 1912, Gray moved his family to Winston to take up his new position of vice-president and director of R. J. Reynolds, hand-picked by Reynolds himself to head the company's finance division.[1] In 1924, he was promoted to president of the company to succeed William Neal Reynolds, and in 1932 he became the chairman of the board of directors. Gray's brother James Gray, Jr. would also become president of R.J. Reynolds.

Between 1927 and 1932, he and his wife oversaw the construction of Graylyn, their 87-acre (350,000 m2) estate in the countryside surrounding Winston, across from R.J. Reynolds' estate Reynolda House.[1] In 1932 when they moved into Graylyn, Gray and his wife donated their former house for use as a church.[1] Two years after moving to Graylyn, Gray died of a heart attack while vacationing with his family aboard a ship off the coast of Norway. He was buried at sea.

Construction was slowed by the Great Depression, and Graylyn was not fully complete until 1952.[1] Gray donated to philanthropic causes in the region, many times doing so quietly.[1] At the time of his death in 1935, he left $750,000 worth of stock in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to Wake Forest University for the establishment of a medical school.[1] The Bowman Gray School of Medicine opened in 1941. Graylyn was donated to the Bowman School of Medicine, where it served as an academic psychiatric hospital facility until 1959.

In the 1970s, parts of Graylyn were used as off-campus student housing. In 1979, the main house hosted the Wake Forest University "German House." There is an underground tunnel connecting the main house to the large guest house (the "French House"). It was not until 1980, after a fire burned the top floor of the estate, that the president of the university announced the property would be restored to its original condition and used as a conference center.

Gray left behind him a legacy of philanthropy. He donated the property on which the Centenary Methodist Church in Winston would be built and contributed to local hospitals and orphanages as well. He and his sons also contributed heavily to Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of his death, his holdings in R. J. Reynolds alone were valued at $12 million.